


I won’t stop ‘til I get where you are

by Sylvalum



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:12:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23176108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvalum/pseuds/Sylvalum
Summary: Pyra and Mythra come back after their sacrifice and remember nothing. They don’t even rememberRex.
Relationships: Homura | Pyra/Rex
Comments: 14
Kudos: 35





	I won’t stop ‘til I get where you are

**Author's Note:**

> -title from _graveyard_ by halsey  
-the wip name for this i had was literally ‘tragic pyrex’. take from that what you will :)  
-i personally view pyra, mythra & nia as all being teenagers?? so yeah. just making that clear.

Pyra and Mythra awaken on top of a very small Titan, that’s flying at rapid speed very high above the Cloud Sea. Pyra doesn’t think there’s supposed to be _ two _ of them - but at the same time she _ knows _ Mythra, deep in her Core, she knows her element, her name, her voice. She knows that she _ has _ to be here together with Pyra. Not quite two sides of a coin, but Pyra cannot be here without Mythra. So, there’s two of them from one Core.

A matched set, maybe.

Pyra opens her eyes and sees first the orange rosy sunset, feels wind against her face, and then she sets her eyes upon her Driver-

-and the teenage boy who resonated with her is _ overjoyed _. Their eyes meet and the affinity link snaps into place, golden like the sun, and at once she’s almost overwhelmed by the strength of his feeling. She gets tears in her eyes from it.

And then a robot girl barrels past him, slamming into Pyra and Mythra, arms coming up to squeeze them in a - hug. 

Awkwardly, Pyra reaches out and rubs her back, a little, but still she can’t look away from her Driver for more than a second or two. He’s got a whole gang of Blades and Drivers behind him, too, and they all look so radiantly _ happy- _

The feeling makes her heart skip and beat too fast and a blush rise to her cheeks and she feels as if she’s going to burst from it, start giggling- she takes a deep breath to steady herself. Feels joy fill her every limb.

“Um,” Pyra says, knowing she ought to present herself, but these people - they look like they knew her before, knew her past Driver probably… whoever that was. Shouldn’t an Aegis always remember her past Drivers, or maybe never forget them?

...but what’s an Aegis?

Oh, it probably doesn’t matter!

“You’re back,” her Driver breathes, finally taking a step closer to them. Pyra’s skin feels electric. “You’re really…” his eyes look so shiny and wet and his voice sounds choked, as if the intense waves of emotion coming from the affinity link weren’t enough, and Pyra wants to hold him close and say… Well, she should reassure him, right, because that’s what Blades do. 

“Yeah,” Mythra says just then. “Hey. We’re…”

“We’re Pyra and Mythra,” Pyra adds, now that Mythra’s gotten them started. “Um... And who are you…?” she was asking, but she trails off into quiet there and then, because all at once her Driver looks like she’s _ stabbed _ him. He stumbles a step back, slaps a hand over his mouth and shakes his head, and the little robot hugging them steps back too, looking up at them with big and hurt eyes, and it’s - it’s _ terrible, _ but it’s still nothing compared to the emotion that next comes through the link.

Grief. No, not even that: heartbreak, all-my-hopes-just-dashed grief, _ disappointment. _

“Tora no get it,” comes a nopon voice distantly, but Pyra can’t focus, she feels like she can hardly even breathe under the weight of her Driver’s crushing disappointment- “Pyra and Mythra no remember their Rex-Rex?”

_ Rex. _

Pyra latches onto the name desperately, like knowing this one thing will make her Driver feel better, make her less of a sudden and terrible disappointment to him. Next to Pyra, Mythra says, angrily except for how Pyra knows how on the inside she’s really hurting just like her, _ “You _ resonated with us, Rex. You have to know Blades don’t remember their past Drivers, right? _ Right?” _

“Mythra…” Rex says brokenly, and then a Gormotti girl puts a hand on his shoulder and he turns away from them, and shakes his head as the girl whispers something to him.

* * *

The beautiful Blade lady wreathed in blue flames and her stoic Driver, who quickly introduce themselves as Brighid and Mòrag, take charge of the situation. Rex goes and sits with the Gormotti girl and her Blade - and oh does that _ hurt _\- while Pyra and Mythra get to go sit at the other end of the Titan’s back together with Brighid and another two Blades, who Brighid presents as Aegeon and Roc.

“I know how it feels,” Aegeon says somberly, looking at them with his strange white eyes, “To wake up and see on everyone’s face that they already recognise you. That they’re already expecting things from you, perhaps.”

“Okay,” says Pyra in a small voice, hugging her knees to her chest.

_ Expectations. _ That’s a word, certainly.

Mythra, sitting beside Pyra, sniffs and turns up her nose. She snaps, because when she’s hurt her instinctive reaction is to lash out, “It isn’t _ our _ fault that our Driver’s acting like this.”

“No,” says Roc in his squawky voice. “It’s the past you’s fault. But nobody can be blamed for that.”

“He’ll come around,” Aegeon promises. “Everyone becomes used to it, sooner or later.”

“And Rex is a good kid,” Brighid adds. 

“Besides,” says Roc. “You've got a whole bunch of people here who can _ tell you _ about your past life! That’s something many other Blades don’t get.”

“I guess,” Pyra says quietly, reaching out a hand until Mythra finds it and squeezes it. “At least I’ve got Mythra, though.”

“Yes,” Brighid agrees, softly. “In that regard, the two of you certainly are very lucky.”

* * *

Soon, or maybe it’s been a little while, Pyra can’t really tell, but either way, the sun goes down. The Titan has been flying above land for a while though, so when it gets dark the Titan simply starts looking for a good place to land. They end up on a hill, in a little forest with bright green and white trees no taller than Brighid, and where the ground is scattered with tiny white and yellow flowers, thousands of them. Below them gleams a lake in the dark, and in the distance Pyra can see a few jagged mountain peaks, dark against the sky.

It’s beautiful. And none of it is familiar in the least.

“It’s a whole new continent,” Roc says. “It’s new to all of us.”

“Oh. Alright,” says Pyra, and feels a tiny, infinitesimal bit better.

When the others all start setting up camp, Pyra just sits to the side with Mythra, squeezing her hand, and tries to stamp out her feelings of uselessness and inadequacy with every fibre of her being.

Until something tickles her sixth sense, and she looks up and sees her Driver. He’s nervous. He feels bad but looks sheepish, and he starts to approach the two of them carefully.

Mythra makes a move as if to rise, but she doesn’t when Pyra doesn’t let go of her hand.

(it’s just the two of them against everything else, against everything they forgot, and Pyra _ can’t _bring herself to let go of Mythra just yet-)

“Hey,” says their Driver, Rex, and sits down in the grass in front of them. He feels guilty, and Pyra - tries to not read anything into it, just like she’s desperately been trying to shield herself from the storm of his emotions ever since the first moment she awoke.

“I am _ so _ sorry about that,” is the next thing Rex tells them. “I mean. How I reacted. Earlier. It’s just - memories. Those don’t matter… that much, right. I failed you both but - you’re also both alive, and that’s all I ever wanted, _ I promise.” _

“Okay?” says Mythra.

Their Driver bows his head, inhales sharply, and when he looks up his eyes are shiny and wet. “Yes. Again, I’m so sorry. I love you both. So much. I-” he squeezes his eyes shut again, and what pulses through the bond is pain. “It’s all my fault this happened to you. And I love you. I do. And I hope… we can move past this, and - and - and make many new memories. As Driver and Blades. If you accept this and, uh, me. After everything.”

Mythra sits stiff and silent next to Pyra, and Pyra can feel herself just, blinking tears away from her eyes. Again and again.

“You love us?” Mythra asks, defiant even though her voice trembles a little.

“I do. _ I do.” _ Rex’s eyes glisten with unshed tears but his voice is firm, nothing but overwhelmingly pure honesty coming through the bond.

He’s wonderful. Pyra can feel his emotions almost strongly enough to taste them, wants to take him in her arms and hold him. Yet her mere existence seems to hurt him, and the first thing Pyra did was disappoint him. The first thing their Driver did was to turn away from them. It’s burnt into their bond, just as solidly as that first rush of joy and - and _ love. _

It aches.

But there’s nothing Pyra could want more than whatever Rex is offering, so she says, “Of course I accept you. We’re your Blades, aren’t we, Mythra?”

And Mythra draws in a long breath, and says, “Yes. We are.”

Rex nods, and wipes at his eyes, and offers his hands to Pyra and Mythra. And the both of them each take a hand, and lets Rex embrace them, clumsily, and Pyra holds back her tears.

* * *

In the morning, Pyra feels more settled.

Their team eats breakfast from foods stored in their bags and pouches and some scavenged greens, and then they pack up camp and get ready to move forward. Rex makes sure to introduce Pyra and Mythra to the others after that: Nia, the Gormotti girl, and her Blade Dromarch. Saying hi to Brighid and Mòrag and Aegeon again, who apparently are here on the behalf of the Ardainian Empire. Zeke and Pandoria and Herald, who all hail from Tantal. Tora and Poppi, and Azurda, the Titan, and the Blades Roc and Adenine, KOS-MOS and Wulfric.

Pyra memorises all the names, resolves to never forget them again, ever.

“I know,” Roc tells her, at one point. “We’re a pretty big crowd. No one would think to blame ya if you messed up a name or two.”

“I know,” Pyra answers, and promises herself silently to never address someone here by the wrong name.

If she’s able to learn all their names, then maybe…

(maybe she’ll be good enough)

When they set out, Zeke and his Blades leave their group, saying they’ve ‘spotted Tantal to the east, I’ll see you chums later’. Rex’s crowd all tell them heartfelt goodbyes, while Pyra waves them goodbye and feels endlessly awkward.

After that, their team starts walking through the forest where they made camp, ambling along all day and eventually reaching a large grassy plain. Seen in the distance from that meadow, there seems to be some kind of desert farther away, with mountains and man-made structures, and when they see those, Mòrag’s group also bids their leave.

Pyra hugs Aegeon and Brighid goodbye and thanks them for everything.

Aegeon awkwardly nods, while Brighid puts a hand on Pyra’s shoulder and says seriously, “I promise you, you will find your place here. Rex is a good kid, and so are you. Your bond was so strong and he cares deeply for you. It’ll all turn out just fine.”

“Thanks,” Pyra mumbles.

“And you, Mythra,” Brighid then adds, sharply. “Look out for the both of them, yes? Now the two of you, take care.”

And so they leave, too.

* * *

The places they travel through are nearly always beautiful. It’s mostly grasslands or forests, with lakes and different kinds of shore to the ocean, with scattered hills and mountains. After three days of travelling, Pyra still hasn’t tired of the landscape.

She _ has _ discovered that she knows how to cook, though.

Mythra doesn’t.

It’s one of the most glaringly obvious differences in their abilities so far, and Pyra can’t help but wonder - about it, all of it. Why in the world there’s two of them, for one.

Like they’ve been split into two different halves.

Pyra is sure she could ask someone, but-

But. She shouldn’t bother them with this, right. It’s probably completely fine and normal - since mostly everyone else accepts the existence of both Pyra and Mythra at the same time as nothing unusual. It’s fine. It’s something she should already know. But it’ll be fine! Eventually, she’ll find out, and in the meantime, she’s just proud of how tasty her latest stew turned out.

She carries on, stubbornly and determinedly.

“It’s crazy, isn’t it?” Nia tells Pyra one night as they’re cleaning up the dishes in a stream together. “How Blades can flawlessly remember the recipe for pan-fried tartari or facts about some stupid ancient civilisations no one’s ever heard of, but then the memories that _ matter _ are just… gone.” 

“Hmm,” Pyra agrees disquietly, not really caring what this Gormotti Driver who’s so stupidly close to Rex has to say on the matter.

“Aw, shite,” Nia says, after taking a look at Pyra’s face. “I didn’t mean it like _ that! _I’m just saying, that when my family awakened me for the second time-”

“Your _ what?” _ Pyra asks, turning to look at Nia. She’s a Driver, right? _ Right? _

“I’m a Flesh-Eater,” Nia says, flashing her a wry grin with teeth. “This isn’t my true form, in case that was what you were going to ask next.”

“Oh, um, I.” Pyra thinks desperately, that you don’t usually _ tell _ people that you’re a Flesh-Eater, right? Something in Pyra’s gut just tells her that that’s - a bad idea, though then again… Pyra is a Blade, and Nia must’ve known her for a long time. Pyra of the past probably knew this fact, too, so really… “Okay. I’m sorry for earlier-”

“No worries.” Nia flaps an unconcerned hand, and Pyra shuts her mouth. “Just give it time, Pyra.”

And then they finish washing the dishes, and Pyra wonders.

* * *

Another week passes, and they follow a mountain range right into a valley of abundant life. It’s hot and humid there, with all kinds of plants growing from everywhere, even in the air - though the trees haven’t grown very tall yet - and every day it rains at least once. Nia and Dromarch love it, while Mythra’s hair gets frizzier and frizzier and she keeps snapping at Tora for every word he says.

And Pyra keeps thinking.

Keeps looking at Rex when his attention is elsewhere, keeps- wondering. If she ever held him in her arms, _ before, _like she longs to do now. If she ever- ever-

-and then Mythra always looks at her, and Pyra looks away but keeps wondering.

They trek onwards. After the valley, they find a meadow and a campsite with many tents. Many _ humans. _ For a long while, the only human nearby has been Rex, and it’s not like adding the rest of them to the equation makes their group very big. Adenine wonders excitedly if perhaps there’s traders among them, and when their group reaches the campsite and gets welcomed in, they immediately break up to go their separate ways.

Nia and Dromarch head off to help a nurse with some sickness, Adenine disappears to hunt for books, and Roc and Wulfric invite Pyra along to their quest of finding some good hearty food - and Pyra declines. She follows Mythra and Rex instead, as Rex finds the camp courier and starts negotiating for some deliveries. They wait for him, patiently. And then Pyra realises, that people are starting to stop to look at her. At her and Mythra and Rex. _ Whispering. _

Mythra seems unbothered. Pyra turns to Rex and says, “Um, Rex, did we do something…?”

“Ah, no,” Rex says at once, smiling reassuringly. “They’re just looking ‘cause you’re the Aegis. They’ll go away in a minute, don’t worry.”

_ The Aegis. _

As long as Pyra doesn’t focus too hard on trying to remember the significance behind that word, it feels like she knows it all. The whole weight behind it, and why she and Mythra bear the title. And other times the whole word chafes at her insides, and she’s too frustrated to drop the subject - what does it really _ mean? _ Why’s she so important? What did they _ do? Why did we return to our Core? _

But every time she then just as quickly remembers the _ expressions _ of everyone as they all flew aboard Azurda, and she and Mythra had just been reawakened - and then all her courage and indignation dies in her throat. Pyra can’t ask those questions-

But if she doesn’t, she’ll never know peace.

That night, as they’re settling in at the first inn Pyra can ever remember being in (the beds are so soft! Pillows are wonderful!), and Mythra’s still out looking for the bathroom, Pyra turns to Rex and asks, “What happened to make me go back to my Core?”

Her voice is soft. The only light in the room is of candles, and Rex had been stretched out on his bed, nearly asleep - but now his face is pained and he’s sitting right back up to look at her. “Pyra…” he says.

“Tell me. Please, I can’t go on knowing _ nothing.” _

“You…” Rex swallows, then smiles at her though his eyes are sad. “Fine. Okay. I’ll try.” He pauses, clears his throat. Says, “So... we were in the World Tree, and we’d just finished a battle to decide the fate of our world. And we’d _ won. _ We were all so happy - but then. Then we found out, that the place we were in - a giant treelike tower - was going to collapse down onto Alrest unless we did something. So then, you said… you said there was…” He stops.

Pyra takes a careful step forward. Then another. Then she sits down next to him on the bed.

Rex clears his throat. “You said there was a way to stop it - and there _ was _ \- but what you didn’t tell us was that, that… you had to stay behind to make it happen. You had to sacrifice yourself.”

“Rex-”

“I tried to stop you! You and Mythra both, but the others wouldn’t let me, and you _ knew _ you had to save the world…” He stops, presses his hands to his face as his breathing hitches, and Pyra sits stiff and silent next to him and turns his words over and over in her head and _ then. _ She puts a hand on his shoulder, and turns to let Rex put his arms around her. Wraps her own arms around Rex, at first gingerly but then she tightens her grip and buries her face in the hair at the top of his head.

At least, she figures, she went back into her Core for a noble reason. 

"And what happened then?" She whispers.

"You sent us away in a lifepod," Rex says in a small, garbled voice. "And then - I don't know. The Tree didn’t collapse on the world. We lived. You'd given me your Core beforehand, and after a while it started glowing, so I tried to reawaken you…"

"And that's when Mythra and I came back," Pyra summarises. Here it is; the story of her life. _ Their _ life. Her and Mythra and Rex’s.

"Yeah."

Pyra murmurs, "I'm sorry I left you.” Rex shifts in her arms, and Pyra still doesn’t feel complete. Doesn’t feel like it’s all clicked into place, like - she doesn’t know what perfection feels like. But she knows that she needs to confess this one thing, the first thing she realised: “But I’m _ not _ sorry I went alone. That I tried to save Alrest. If I had to do it again…”

“You would,” Rex fills in, whispering into her shoulder. “That’s why I love you.” He sniffs. “I mean, of course it’s only a_ part _of it, but - you know.”

Pyra breathes in his scent and bites her lip and silently holds him close for a moment longer.

_ Does _she know?

* * *

A week later, and they’ve long since left the camp behind them, now travelling through a marshland region. When they make camp for the night, Pyra cooks and Mythra watches intently while pretending to be disinterested. Until Rex sits down next to them and starts telling them about a man named Addam, that is. It quickly becomes apparent that Addam was their previous Driver before Rex - and just as apparent that Rex didn’t know the man himself, which is… odd.

When Mythra asks about it, it only gets weirder.

“Ah, of course I didn’t meet Addam in the flesh…” Rex says sheepishly. “I mean, he lived 500 years ago - though I did meet his ghost! Or something like that…”

“We didn’t have a Driver for 500 years?” Pyra asks, choosing to ignore whatever it was Rex meant by ‘ghost’. Even for a Blade, that long a time is no joke.

“No,” Rex says, quieter now. “You were asleep for a very long time.”

Pyra mulls it over, then decides upon, “Well, I’m glad we’re awake now.”

“So am I.” Rex says softly. “Meeting you was… maybe the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Um.”

“Oh,” Pyra says in a small voice, then focuses intently on the stew she’s fussing over.

They’ve been travelling for weeks, maybe even months together. The land is beautiful and endless and the skies are bright above them, but there’s only two things Pyra’s completely certain of; Mythra, and Rex’s love for her. His devotion. He’s truly being earnest, their affinity link practically _ sings _ with it, when he says things like that. He really thinks that meeting Pyra and Mythra is one of the best things to ever happen to him.

Pyra’s been looking at it all like it’s a puzzle, like if she gets just another tidbit about her past life and fits it into a timeline with the others, then everything will slot into place and _ make sense. _ Does every new-awakened Blade feel like this? she used to think desperately. Raw and newborn and uncertain, every single moment too big for words?

Now she thinks that there’s no magic word or last piece of data. Now she knows, that the only way to get used to living is by doing it. 

She knows what she’s good at. She’s starting to be really familiar with Nia, Dromarch, Tora, Poppi and the others. She now knows that Rex will always be here by her, _ their _ side. Every day they travel further into the heart of this enormous land, and it’s a new sight to all of them. They’re learning things together. They’re carrying onwards and they’re living.

It’s... not so bad. Not at all.

* * *

Whenever Pyra catches Rex looking at her he gives her a smile, sometimes sheepish, sometimes _ sad. _

Pyra turns over all the data she’s accumulated so far in her head, considers all the emotions she’s received from their affinity link, and starts tentatively trying to figure it out. The mystery of Rex. If she finds out how to make him always happy, then it’ll be as if she’s found the answer to all the great questions of the world, the secret of the universe. She’s got to do it. she’s doing it.

Their journey takes them across a great empty steppe for days, and all the while Pyra and Rex exchange glances without words. Sometimes one of them gets self-conscious, blushes and looks away, but _ sometimes- _

The feeling of electricity whenever Rex looks at her, sunlight filling her chest - it never really went away, did it?

“Do you feel it?” Pyra asks Mythra, one night. “Do you look at him and just…”

Mythra huffs, rolls over on her bedroll. “Nope. I think that’s one more thing we don’t have in common.”

“Hmm,” Pyra hums, and lles down. Closes her eyes. And feels relieved down to the bone. She was almost (stupidly) afraid that this - this feeling was all just a part of being a Blade, a Blade devoted to her Driver. She doesn’t want it to be that. This feeling is just too big and great and unfathomable, she wants it to be only hers and Rex’s. She wants it to be_ special. _

It’s special.

The day they reach the coast on the other side of the continent, Pyra figures it out. 

She brings it up as soon as it’s just the two of them again, away from the rest of the group. They’re walking along the beach, looking for Crustips. The shore is rocky but the water is warm and silky against her bare skin as it washes over their feet while they walk. It makes the rocks slippery, so they’re walking slowly, carefully. Rex keeps constantly glancing back at her as they go, as if to check if she’s still there, and eventually Pyra blurts out, “You don’t blame yourself for us returning to our Cores, right?”

Rex looks away, then back at her miserably. “I’m your _ Driver. _ I wasn’t supposed to _ leave you behind.” _

“Rex,” Pyra says, and takes his hands in hers. “It _ wasn’t _your fault. I made my choice, and you respected that. I must’ve known the risks.”

“I know,” Rex mutters.

“It’s not your fault,” Pyra repeats. “It’s okay, Rex. We’re still alive. I’m here now.”

“I know.” Rex’s voice wavers. “I love you.”

Pyra rests her forehead against Rex’s, right where they’re standing there in the water. Dares, finally, to pry open her heart, her Core, and bare the deepest part of herself to Rex and say, quietly, “I love you, too.”

Rex sniffles, then laughs a little. “You do?”

“Of course.”_ In every life I’ve lived. _ “I don’t know everything yet, but this - this I’m sure of.”

Rex closes his eyes, then opens them again, golden and so fond. He kisses Pyra’s cheek then steps back, just a little, and they sway together there on the rocks. “Good,” he says, smiling. “Guess we better go catch some lunch. You’re still coming with me?”

Pyra smiles back. “Do you even need to ask?”


End file.
